


the weight of living

by vulcanisticsarchive



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 07:37:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19291207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcanisticsarchive/pseuds/vulcanisticsarchive
Summary: Clint takes the fall.





	the weight of living

**Author's Note:**

> It's been weeks and I'm still upset about Natasha's arc. Here's a version of Endgame where most things, more or less stay the same, and other things change.

Doctor Strange and the other sorcerers take charge; shuttling and transporting people to various parts of the world, to hospitals and mansions and government offices and safe houses, to family. She distantly thinks that she should be overseeing the efforts, making sure that everyone is accounted for, crawling through the battlefield to check for casualties, but she’s in the Stark mansion, far away from the ruins of the compound. She wonders what's happening in the world outside, what the news pundits are saying, what the government is telling the people. She wonders if they’ve been absolved of their sins. There's so much work that needs to be done.

She pulls up a chair and sits besides the telephone. Exhaustion crawls and creeps its through her ribs, settling into the cracks and crevices of every bone in her body. She feels nauseous and her mouth tastes of metal and ash. Clint’s phone is in the pocket of her suit, she can feel shards of glass or metal poking into her thigh. A phone destroyed in the collapse of a building and the violence of the battlefield was useless to her. 

_ Tony could probably _ ‒ Natasha flinches away from the thought and exhales deeply. Tony was gone.

She stares down at her hands, stained brown and black and red, and trembling ever so slightly. She dials the Bartons’ phone number from memory. 

Someone touches her shoulder, and Natasha startles, whirling around with her elbow jutting out defensively, tightening her grip on the phone pressed to her ear. Bucky raises his hands in front of him and shuffles backwards. She breathes out and shakes her head. He looks at her with concerned and watchful eyes. 

_ Are you okay,  _ he asks with a quirk of an eyebrow. 

She’s not, she hasn’t been okay for a long time. Not since Wakanda. Not since Vormir. She doesn’t have to close her eyes to see Clint falling again and again and again, always out of her reach, always pulling her close enough to snag the cord around her wrist before letting go. 

Somehow, she manages to smile, reaching up to brush a strand of stray hair away from his eyes.

“You should check on Steve,” she mouths.

Steve, who had walked through the rubble of the battlefield with Tony’s body cradled to his chest. Steve, who hadn’t said a word to anyone after the dust had settled. Steve, who had disappeared into one of the rooms, hands clenched at his side. His eyes had met hers as he had walked past her, and Natasha had turned, fingers reaching out to him to pull him close, but Steve was gone. 

Clint was dead, Tony was dead, and Steve had looked at her with the eyes of someone who wanted to be dead. 

Bucky gives her one last assessing look, the corners of his mouth dipped into a frown, before nodding sharply and turning on his heels. 

The phone stops ringing.

“Hello?” Someone asks, and Natasha brings up a hand to her mouth to stop the cry of relief from spilling out. She had hoped they were okay, had seen Clint’s phone light up with Laura's face and name but the sound of Lila’s voice is reassuring and real. 

“Hello? Dad, is that you? Where did you go?” Lila continues, and Natasha feels her eyes prick with tears. 

“No, it’s me, it’s Aunty Nat. I need to‒ Lila, I need to talk to your mom.” 

The line falls silent for a few seconds before Lila quietly asks, “Is Dad okay?” 

“I‒ Lila,” Natasha begins but the words die in her throat. They won. They lost. She lost Clint. The Bartons lost Clint. It was supposed to be her. 

“Natasha,” Laura says, her voice high and panicked, “Natasha, are you okay? The news, they’re talking about someone called Thanos, about the Avengers, about people disappearing for five years. Nat, what’s happening? Where’s Clint?”

Natasha remembers Clint and Laura's wedding ceremony suddenly: Clint with his arms locked with hers as she walked him down the aisle, laughing as he leaned into her and mumbled about how he was the luckiest guy in the whole damn world. Laura, standing at the end of the aisle, her eyes twinkling with love, her bouquet raised to hide her smile. Natasha had stood at Clint’s side and watched them exchange vows and rings. She had kissed them both later that night and had promised herself that she would do everything in her power to protect them. She had failed. 

“Natasha, why aren’t you saying anything?”

“I tried, Laura, I tried so hard. It wasn’t supposed to be him,” Natasha chokes on a sob. 

She remembers Clint holding on to her hand as she dangled above certain death. She had been willing to die for Clint, for the Avengers, for Laura and the kids, for the world, but Clint had shaken his head and used every bit of his strength to pull her to him. He'd held her, looking between the edge of the cliff and the ground below. She had laughed through her tears and told him to let go but he didn't.  She hadn't seen him snag the cord around her wrist, hadn't felt him release the safety mechanisms of her suit that anchored her to the mountain. She hadn't seen him do anything but she had heard him say  _ I love you _ and that was all the indication she had before Cling was falling out of her reach. The sound of a body hitting the ground is deafening and devastating.

Natasha exhales and closes her eyes, “I lost him, Laura. I couldn’t save him. I am so sorry.”

Laura makes a devastated sound that rips into her weary heart and Natasha curls up on the chair and cries on the phone with Laura Barton.

 

–––

 

There's a makeshift tent in the backyard of the mansion. Steve stands at the bedroom window and looks down on it. He watches Shuri stand outside it, holding an enormous metal object in her hands as she chats with Bucky who is sitting on the lawn with Sam and T'Challa. Tony would have loved this, would have loved to talk science with Shuri in the aftermath of victory. 

Steve grimaces and closes his eyes. 

He'd held him, he'd held Tony's lifeless body to his chest, he'd been there when Strange had hovered over him– his hands glowing with the mixture of magic and modern-day medicine. He had been there when Pepper had let out an anguished cry and buried her face in Rhodey's shoulder. He had heard her mumble Morgan's name and Steve had risen to his feet and walked out to find a room to himself. 

Many years ago, he'd learnt how to live on after the death of a friend, but he wasn't ready to do it for the second time round. He wasn't sure he understood a world without Tony Stark, living and breathing and experiencing it. He had been and would always be a man out of time, and Tony’s death had sniped some of the tethers that were keeping him tied to this world. 

He had felt that way once about Bucky, but Bucky had come back, and Steve wanted to hope. He wanted to lie to himself. 

Steve leaned against the glass of the window and sighed, he should have died on that battlefield instead of Tony.

Tony, who had a family. Tony, who had listened to Steve's apology speech on the shores of the lake outside his house and had invited him to stay for dinner. Tony, who had been his friend, until he wasn't, and who had tentatively become his friend again. Tony, who Steve had quietly and intensely loved despite everything that had gone wrong. Tony, who had died without knowing.

“Bruce and Bucky and Sam said you're going to return the stones after Tony's service. When were you going to tell me?” Natasha asks.

Steve turns to look at her. He hadn't heard her enter the room but he's not surprised.

Still, he asks, “How long have you been there?”

Natasha shrugs her shoulders. She's sitting cross-legged on his bed, watching him with an intense piercing stare. He takes in the messy braid, the haunted expression hidden behind defiant eyes, the arrow necklace around her neck. Tony wasn't the only casualty of this mess with Thanos.

“Long enough to know that you're not going to go alone.” 

“I’m not going to risk anybody else–”

“And I'm not going to risk you.” Natasha sharply retorts. Her eyes soften. “I know what a death wish looks like, Steve.”  

Steve freezes and he stumbles backwards till his back is pressed up against the window pane. He feels stripped bare. He hasn't spoken a word to Natasha since the battle, only talking to Bucky, Sam, Bruce, Shuri and Scott to prepare to return the stones, but still, she knew. He wonders if they saw the same things as Natasha but if they had remained silent to give him his space to grieve. 

“Steve, I'm coming to return the stones with you,” Natasha says, coming up to stand in front of him. She snakes her hands around his waist and rests her head on his chest, “I am not going to lose you too.”

“How did you know?”

“Know what? That you were going to do something stupid? You’re predictable, Rogers.” Natasha smiles slyly. 

Steve kisses her on the head and holds her tight

**Author's Note:**

> anyway, if you liked this, please do leave kudos or comments! thank you for reading!


End file.
